PANAMA AND ITS PEOPLE—BELL. 619 
Isthmians at all. The Panamanians will tell you that this dialect 
contains a mixture of English, badly pronounced, and spoken with 
a peculiar accent, and that it is probably derived from the crews 
of the British merchantmen that in the old days frequently sought 
refuge from storms in the lagoon. 
RACES AND RACE ADMIXTURE. 
The population of the Isthmus is so variously stated that it is 
difficult to approximate the figures, ranging as it does from 300,000, 
as given in the Monthly Bulletin of the American Republics (Feb- 
ruary, 1904), to 400,000, as given by Menihold two years later, a 
discrepancy which is considerable, considering the smallness of the 
country. These figures exclude, of course, the Americans within 
the Canal Zone, and also the Indians living in their natural state. 
Racial complexities are nowhere more in evidence in so small an 
area than on the Panama Isthmus. An accurate classification of 
the inhabitants would be practically impossible, as there are in- 
numerable “ permutations ” in varying degrees among this heteroge- 
neous people, who hardly recognize the bars of racial distinction. 
The foundation of the population is found in the aborigines, the 
Conquistadores, and in their negro slaves. At the present time the 
pure white blood is in an exceedingly small minority, the vast ma- 
jority of Isthmians being colored people with either Indian or white 
blood, or both. The combination of Indian and white without any 
negro blood is comparatively rarely seen. The distinctions are, how- 
ever, as follows: Mestizo, white and Indian; mulatto, white and 
negro; zambo, negro and Indian. 
It was not until the time of the building of the railroad and later, 
the canal enterprise, that the flood of Asiatics, Europeans, and West 
Indian colored people, from the Dutch, French, and English colonial 
possessions came to the Isthmus, many of whom never returned to 
their native lands and left in their adopted country a numerous and 
nameless progeny. Their children mingling in turn with those of 
various races has resulted in a most conglomerate people. These 
descendants of foreign laborers are chiefly confined to the districts 
adjacent to the “ great highway ” and its terminal cities. The Ori- 
entals, chiefly Chinese or Japanese, though there are some Hindoos, 
at the present time do not mingle with the other races of the Isthmus 
to any appreciable extent, though in the towns along the railroad 
such as Matachin ” there are many evidences of a former interbreed- 
“Valdes observes that in the Spanish spoken in rural communities of the 
Isthmus generally, idioms are used never observed elsewhere in either Central 
or South America. 
>’ Matar=Spanish to kill, and Chino=Chinaman. 
